BOOKS: FICTIONAL DISASTERS

Buchanan, Bill. VIRUS Copyright 1997. After computers are taught to think for themselves, the Star Wars Missile Defense System is actually put into orbit. A spy for Saddam Hussein uploads a virus into it, which twists around its thinking patterns so much that it knocks anything that flies, including passenger airliners, out of the sky.

Byrne, Robert. SKYSCRAPER Copyright 1984. A 66 story building in midtown Manhattan is built virtually ignoring all safety and building codes. Sure, buildings must sway a little from side to side, but this one sways so much that the people working inside are getting seasick! It's a race against time for a structural engineer to convince everyone that the building is unsafe and must be closed for repairs or demolition.

Chrichton, Michael
AIRFRAME Copyright 1998. An investigation into the crash of an airliner reveals a coverup.
JURASSIC PARK Copyright 1990. An experiment to bring dinosaurs to life again goes awry.

Dunmore, Spencer. COLLISION Copyright 1974. A passenger airliner and an Army transport collide in mid-air. The trick is, they've collided in such a way that the 2 planes, twisted together as they are, remain aloft and someone must try to land them.

Cussler, Clive. SERPENT Copyright 1998. From the author that brought you Raise the Titanic, here's a new story. This time, there's a priceless treasure in the hold of the Andrea Doria, resting at the bottom of the sea since the '50's.

Gallico, Paul.
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE Copyright 1969.
BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE Copyright 1978.
See Movie Tie-Ins for details on both of these books.

Gentry, Curt. THE LAST DAYS OF THE LATE GREAT STATE OF CALIFORNIA Copyright 1968. The biggest earthquake ever recorded tosses half of California into the ocean. (Remember the movie Superman? Lex Luthor bought up all the land along the fault lines so he'd have beachfront property when he made the quake happen. Well, if you go by this book, he'd be rich as Midas!)

Hailey, Arthur
These aren't all disaster books, but Hailey's novels are so good, they all deserve at least a mention. Disaster novels are noted as such, but if you like his writing, why not read them all?
THE FINAL DIAGNOSIS Copyright 1959. Takes place in a hospital. A pathologist who is too set in his ways to accept modern advances in his field puts a number of lives in danger.
HOTEL Copyright 1965. Another good novel by Hailey. Also made into a good movie in the 60's and later a tv series in the 80's with James Brolin and Connie Selecca.
AIRPORT Copyright 1968. DISASTER NOVEL. See Movie Tie-Ins
WHEELS Copyright 1971.
THE MONEYCHANGERS Copyright 1975. Romance and espionage in the banking industry.
OVERLOAD Copyright 1979. DISASTER NOVEL. A power already spread too thin because of a heat wave is targeted by a group of terrorists. When some of the power plants are bombed, a blackout ensues and widespread panic erupts.
STRONG MEDICINE Copyright 1984. The trials and tribulations of salespeople representing a pharmaceutical company.
RUNWAY ZERO EIGHT Written with John Castle, copyright 1985. DISASTER NOVEL. An outburst of food poisoning leaves a number of passengers, as well as the pilot and copilot, on an airliner sick. Who's flying the plane? Although this is a dramatic story, the basic premise seems to have inspired the comedy movie AIRPLANE!, a spoof of disaster movies.

MacDonald, John D. CONDOMINIUM Copyright 1977. Elderly people who have retired to live in Florida are in for a big surprise. The condominiums they live in aren't as rock solid as they'd like to think. A retired structural engineer notices that something's wrong. When he investigates further, he finds shoddy workmanship, payoffs, low-grade materials, and, worst of all, virtually non-existent pilings. If nothing's holding the building up, what will happen when a hurricane blows through their sleepy litttle community?

Scortia, Thomas N. & Robinson, Frank M.
THE GLASS INFERNO Copyright 1974. See Movie Tie-Ins
THE PROMETHEUS CRISIS Copyright 1975. Another prophetic novel. This time, a nuclear power plant built without some necessary safety precautions goes into total meltdown on the day it is brought online. Written way before 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, this book should have been taken as a warning of what could be. Even the authors in the afterword say that although they hope it isn't a scenario for a catastrophe to come, they are afraid it just may happen. Spooky.
THE NIGHTMARE FACTOR Copyright 1978. An extremely deadly virus threatens to kill everyone in San Francisco, then spread to who knows where. Interpreted loosely, the authors seem to have predicted a crisis similar to the AIDS epidemic. Pretty neat, considering the book was written before AIDS had been heard of.
THE GOLD CREW Copyright 1980. The crew of a nuclear subcarrying missiles is led to believe the Soviet Union is attacking the U.S. 3 men on the sub know it's just a drill, but their reality becomes distorted after awhile. Will they launch their missiles and cause WWIII?

Searls, Hank. THE CROWDED SKY Copyright 1960. Even as old as the book is, the scenario which develops could happen today. It's a mid-air collision waiting to happen when you combine overworked and underpaid air traffic controllers, air traffic equipment way outdated and in no way able to handle the air traffic of the present, and older airline pilots so set in their ways that they expect everyone to work around them.

Stern, Richard Martin
THE TOWERCopyright 1973. See Movie Tie-Ins
FLOODCopyright 1979.

Stewart, Edward. THE GREAT LOS ANGELES FIRE Copyright 1980. A psychotic man is bitter about his terrible disfigurement due to burns suffered while serving in the Army. He decides to pay back society by destroying Los Angeles with a number of firebombs.

Movie Tie Ins

Here's a section with an in-depth look at books that were made into movies, and books written from movie screenplays. For information about the movies themselves, access our Disaster Movie Directory .

AFTERSHOCK: EARTHQUAKE IN NEW YORK

Scarborough, Chuck. AFTERSHOCK Copyright 1991. What if a massive earthquake hit New York City? This is one author's opinion of what would be left and how anyone could survive. Well, since none of the buildings are meant to withstand any earthquake at all, there won't be much left, that's for sure. And, believe it or not, NYC is actually on a fault line that is inactive, but who knows for how long?

AIRPORT Movies

Hailey, Arthur. AIRPORT Copyright 1968. The original! A down on his luck man plots to blow up an airplane along with himself so that his wife may be able to live in comfort off of the insurance money.
Scheff, Michael and Spector, David. AIRPORT '77 Copyright 1977. A group of thieves plot to steal a luxuriously outfitted 747 just long enough to steal the paintings it is carrying. Unfortunately, the pilot ends up landing the plane in the ocean and a rescue operation is mounted.
Stewart, Kerry. THE CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79 Copyright 1979. A Concorde becomes a live target for a ruthless arms manufacturer attempting to keep a reporter from talking about his illegal sales to other countries.
The original Airport was written as a book first, but '77 and '79 were taken from the movie screenplays. Books from screenplays must always be taken with a grain of salt, because they generally don't go into the depth that a real novel would.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE & BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

Gallico, Paul. THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE Copyright 1969. A ship full of passengers celebrating New Years Eve is turned upside down by a tidal wave. A group of passengers attempts to climb up to what used to be the bottom (hull) in order to escape.
Gallico, Paul. BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE Copyright 1978. Rogo, Martin, and Rosen (characters from the first book) return to the overturned Poseidon and meet up with some new characters who would like to salvage valuables before the ship goes down. It turns out Rogo wasn't just a passenger. He had a very special shipment to guard and he'd rather see it go down with the ship than leave with undesirables.
For those of you who have seen the movie versions of these two books, read them anyway! Both books go into much, much more detail, as well as getting into areas of the story never dealt with in the movie versions. (As you can see with the synopsis of "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.) The little known story behind "Beyond..." is that it's a sequel to the movie "The Poseidon Adventure", not the book. Without giving the plot of the first book away, suffice it to say that the end does not make a sequel possible, as opposed to the Irwin Allen movie, which does.

THE TOWERING INFERNO

Scortia, Thomas N. and Robinson, Frank M. THE GLASS INFERNO Copyright 1974.
Stern, Richard Martin. THE TOWER Copyright 1973.
Both of these books have virtually the same story: A skyscraper on fire traps hundreds of people on floors not easily reached by normal rescue methods. (See the Disaster Movie section for more information on the movie itself and why 2 books were used.)

GRAY LADY DOWN

Lavalee, David. GRAY LADY DOWN Copyright 1971. The crew of a sub is trapped at the bottom of the ocean when a course change causes them to collide with a ship. The best thing about the book version is that the length of time they are trapped is much longer-a month! Because of this, the story goes into much more detail and explores how the crew deals with dwindling power supply, dwindling air, and dwindling patience.

Comments, things we should check out or add? Please Email / knighton@cablespeed.com

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